Mounting a Meteor 5:1 zoom on a Micro 4/3 camera

[Patrick Cooper]

I have a Krasnogorsk 3 16mm camera that stopped working a number of years ago. I haven't seen it around for a long time but it's got to be around here somewhere. I was thinking of mounting the Meteor f1.9 17-69mm lens to a Panasonic M4/3 camera. I do have an M42 to M4/3 lens adapter though that seems to be misplaced as well - Ive got to hunt around for that one too.

 

Though one thing that concerns me a bit is the rear glass element on this Meteor lens. From memory, it protrudes quite a bit and has sort of a cone shape. I don't think Ive owned any other lens where the rear element sticks out so much. Obviously, there wouldn't be any mirror for the rear element to hit when it's mounted on an M4/3 camera. Though would there be any chance that it could hit the sensor?

[Mark Dunn]

Probably, just. M42 FFD is 45.5mm, and the Meteor protrudes about 40mm. behind the mount, although that's measured from a bayonet lens.

I don't know if the lens would cover MFT, though. It's twice the linear dimensions of 16mm.

You would have to be very careful to keep the flange parallel to the sensor.

[Patrick Cooper]

Woops! I forgot about the image circle being smaller. I guess lenses designed for Super 16 would likely cover MFT? Though they would be out of my budget regardless. I was hoping that there may be some old, manual focus fast zoom lenses designed for 35mm still photography that I could adapt to MFT but so far I haven't come across any.

[JB Earl]

I have a meteor 17-69 with PL mount. It clears the mirror on my Eclair NPR. It does not cover Super 16 though-so it will not cover an MFT sensor.

I can check if it clear my blackmagic sensor, if that would help you.

you can find older lenses like tokina & Tamron zooms that are f2.8 that will easily cover MFT

Edited June 12, 2018 by JB Earl

[Brett Allbritton]

I have an adapter made by RAF Camera that seems to have been specifically designed for using that lens on Micro Four Thirds cameras. It's longer than a typical adapter so that the end of it doesn't hit the sensor, and I've used it to put the lens on a GH4 without any issues. I've also seen footage from a Blackmagic Pocket Camera using it. The only issue is that, as already noted, the lens doesn't fully cover the sensor, though at longer focal lengths the vignetting is much more subtle.

It's at least something fun to play around with, or if you don't mind cropping the image to look like 16mm. I actually saw a short film shot with a Blackmagic that cropped the image to 1.33:1 and just went with the 16mm look.

Search for "RAF Camera M42x1 lens to MFT" and you'll find it.